8 Bid Farewell to the 'Future': Musty Air, Roaches and Ants

By SETH MYDANS,

Published: September 27, 1993

ORACLE, Ariz., Sept. 26—
Gulping the rich air of the earth's atmosphere and blinking at the vastness of the horizon, eight men and women emerged this morning from two years inside the world's largest and strangest test-tube experiment, a planet-in-a-bottle called Biosphere 2.

Dressed in matching blue "Star Trek"-like uniforms, they marched out in single file from the airtight hatch of the glass-enclosed 3.15-acre terrarium they have shared with 3,800 other species of plants and animals in what they said was an attempt to duplicate the earth's natural harmonies. Visions of Martian Settlements

The welcoming ceremony, accompanied by a flute solo and a gush of utopian New Age oratory, was in keeping with the odd mix of science and showmanship that has characterized the entire venture and caused widespread uneasiness among professional scientists.

The crisp morning air here on the edge of the Sonora Desert near Tucson thrummed with hyperbole as various participants proclaimed the day "one of the magic moments in history" and the dawn of "a new science of life as a total system." They billed their venture as "a key to the future of the planet," offering visions of Martian settlements and warm nuclear winters. But just what they accomplished in scientific terms, at a cost of $150 million, remained a question.

Nevertheless, simply filing out together was an accomplishment, after two years of interpersonal ups and downs, a participant, Abigail Alling, said in an interview after what was billed as their "re-entry" into the real world. Even more than a crisis with failing oxygen or the participants' average loss of almost 14 percent of weight, she said, "human group dynamics" emerged as the biggest challenge.

Only the knowledge that they were mutually interdependent in this fragile ecological system held them together, despite tensions and incompatibilities that she said were worse than any she had experienced on seagoing voyages as a marine biologist. "It's a tremendous tribute to the eight people that we all walked out together," she said.

They have refused to discuss possible romances or arguments. Feasting on Fresh Air

As she stepped out from the thin but musty air of the glass-and-steel enclosure, she said, she found herself taking deep breaths for the sheer pleasure of it. Her eyes, bounded for two years by the confines of the enclosure, suddenly became engrossed in exploring "this wide horizon, this vast sky."

For two years, the four men and four women succeeded, apart from some corner-cutting, in breathing the same recycled air and drinking the same recycled water, taking in only sunlight, electricity and information, much the way they say space travelers might live in the future.

There was no public talk, though there was some private whispering among project personnel, about the proliferating swarms of cockroaches and ants that had the biospherians stamping their feet in futile combat.

Project leaders seemed pleased enough with the results to keep pushing ahead. They announced that the two-year experiment was just the "inaugural voyage" of a 100-year project and that a second team would begin a one-year stay in five months.

Dr. Roy Walford, a participant, said the experiment had demonstrated a way of living "closer to the idea of a natural paradise such as the earth should be and could be."

Another, Mark Nelson, said the group's experience had provided "an operating manual for the world."

If it is an operating manual, mainstream scientists say, it is an obscure one. Questionable Actions

Financed by a Texas oil billionaire, Edward Perry Bass, the Space Biospheres Ventures, as the enterprise is called, has tossed out the careful and controlled methods of mainstream science and has kept much of its work obscured from the public.

It was only after rumors and critical reports that project officials admitted pumping in 600,000 cubic feet of fresh air, introducing a carbon dioxide scrubber, supplementing the home-grown diet with stored food and slipping in a duffel bag of emergency supplies.

Former participants and outside critics say they have been intimidated from raising criticism by threats of lawsuits. Other scientific observers question the value of science in which anecdote replaces controlled testing.

On the eve of the biosphere's inauguration two years ago, one scientist, Charles Hutchinson, an associate professor at the Office of Arid Lands Studies at the University of Arizona, described its approach as a scientific crap shoot "in which you take a bunch of components, throw them all together, shake them up and hope everything will work out in the end."

Without a specific stated goal, the project's participants were able today to pronounce it a resounding success: all eight "biospherians," as participants call themselves, emerged in good shape and the miniature world inside apparently continued to flourish.

Few specifics were offered on the success of the many species or of the artificial environment's separate ecosystems -- an ocean with mechanical tides, a rain forest, a savanna, a marsh and a desert -- or of the tiny farm that was to sustain the eight humans.

Once the data from participants and computer monitors are analyzed, the project coordinators said, science will have a rich trove of material with which to study earth's ecology and the possibilities for life in space. 'Modern New Laboratory'

Looking tired and thin but healthy in the interview, before being reunited with her 5-year-old son, Ms. Alling defended the kind of science practiced here as a key to this planet's future.

Even if it is not as rigorous as a classroom experiment, she said, it has created a "modern new laboratory for the study of ecology," something more advanced than simply putting a plastic bag over nature.

At a press conference, the eight men and women had more to say about food than science, though they did discuss a still puzzling 10 percent drop in the oxygen level that necessitated an infusion of new air, and severe weight loss that contributed to frayed tempers.

Dr. Walford, a physician, said the average loss among the women was 9 to 10 percent of body weight, and among the men was as high as 18 percent. His colleagues then describe the cravings for food that occupied their thoughts and led one of them, Sally Silverstone, to write a cookbook.

Dinner, with the limited foodstuffs available, took on crucial importance, said Jane Poynter, and as cooking chores rotated, it became vitally important not to spoil the day's meal for the others. Dessert became fantasy time, she said, as the diners described the sweets they were missing.

But weren't they in paradise?

Dr. Walford had a warning for his colleagues as they headed out into the hurly-burly of the world. Eat carefully, he said, or you could get indigestion.

Photos: Crew members after they emerged from two years of experiments inside the closed environmental dome called Biosphere 2. From the left were Mark Nelson, Linda Leigh, Abigail Alling, Mark Van Thillo, Sally Silverstone, Taber MacCallum, Jane Poynter, and Roy Walford. (Jim Wilson/The New York Times)(pg. A13); Participants emerging from Biosphere 2 in Oracle, Ariz. (Agence France-Presse)(pg. A1)